That's essentially what coach Randy Carlyle was getting at after the game when he said Reimer had a headache but wasn't expected to miss any time.

"You're always concerned when any player gets pulled out of a hockey game because of an injury, but this one, there is a history there, so you have to worry about it, for sure," Carlyle said.

Carlyle's words still understandably triggered alarm bells. The biggest reason? His own bizarre belief, communicated in April 2013 and hopefully since amended, that helmets contribute to head injuries.

“I have a theory on concussions,” (Carlyle) said. “I think the reason there’s so much more of them obviously (is) the impact and the size of the equipment and the size of the player — but there’s another factor: everyone wears helmets, and under your skull when you have a helmet on, there’s a heat issue.

“Everyone sweats a lot more, the brain swells. The brain is closer to the skull. Think about it. Does it make sense? Common sense?” said Carlyle, who said he’d never talked to a doctor about his premise, which he was introduced to by Jim Pappin, the former Leaf who also played his career helmet free.

“I don’t know if it’s true, but that would be my theory. Heat expands and cold contracts. The brain is like a muscle, it’s pumping, it swells, it’s a lot closer to the outside of the skull.”

At the time, he was talking about winger Joffrey Lupul, who left a game after having his head bounce between two Philadelphia Flyers. Carlyle was loathe to label whatever Lupul was dealing with as a concussion — "That's a bad word," he sad.

That's fine enough if it's in line with NHL team protocol — specifically, providing as little public information about injuries as possible while dealing with them appropriately behind closed doors. The issue for the Leafs, though, is that it's valid — and necessary — to question whether that was their approach. At The Leafs Nation, Jeff Veillette put together a definitive timeline on the topic, and if you haven't seen it, it's worth your time.

The takeaway: The Leafs organization seemed to put players back on the ice too quickly after collisions — it happened to Nazem Kadri, Jake Gardiner, John-Michael Liles and Paul Ranger. All four of them returned to games, but then missed time with either concussions or concussion-like symptoms.

Another, more immediately relevant name for that list: Reimer. He collided with Brian Gionta in October 2011, finished the period, and then left with what then-coach Ron Wilson called "whiplash-type symptoms." Reimer missed 19 games. Then he returned. Then he was terrible. Then his agent said he'd dealt with symptoms until April 2012 — which means he played 25-ish games in that condition.

Reimer, post-collision, played the worst hockey of his NHL career. That's a problem on a competitive level for both him and the Leafs — injured players, typically, are worse at hockey than healthy ones. Beyond that, though, the Leafs had an obligation to make sure that Reimer wasn't opening himself up for long-term damage. It's tough to say, based on the evidence we have, that they fully lived up to that obligation in 2011.

For the time being, that seems to have changed, and that's good for everyone. The competition between Reimer and Jonathan Bernier is one of the most compelling of the season; both have been outstanding, though Bernier seems to have taken an early lead. Hopefully, we get to track it until June. And we don't, everyone can at least know that bad luck — not bad decisions — are to blame.